VATprism: The new VATSIM data explorer - Update v0.3.0 2021-12-28

[Marvin Kuhnke]

Hey there!

VATprism is a new data explorer for VATSIM, similar to VAT-Spy. VATprism has been developed from the ground up to offer a no-fuss experience into VATSIM data like current traffic and controllers.

VATprism offers heaps of information about current flights and controllers, airports and more.

VATprism offers detailed, sortable and filterable tables for many types of data, for example airports and current flights.

The UI of VATprism is highly customizable. As you might be used to, many information layers, like Airports, FIR borders and flights can be toggled on and off via buttons. Additionally, VATprisms UI and map colors are adjustable. Almost every elements color can be changed, as well as some elements size or look.

For more information, please visit vatprism.org which contains more information about the project as well as download links.

If you have questions or suggestions, the best place is the projects GitHub repository. But I also appreciate your feedback on the VATprism Discord server. If you neither like GitHub nor Discord, of course I'm also happy to take your feedback, suggestions and questions in this thread!

Quick links:

Website

Download

GitHub

Discord

Edited December 28, 2021 at 01:37 AM by Marvin Kuhnke

[Tim Wong]

Have beent a test user for several months now. I can only say it is a great alternative. Marvin, thanks for your effort! 

[Sachin Gnath]

Fantastic I will be giving a try on this soon, thanks Marvin. 

[Andreas Fuchs]

For those who have not checked the website of VATprism yet, you can freely configure the color scheme and by default the program does come with a set of schemes that you can check. One of it looks very much like VATspy 🙂

 

Should you prefer it a bit darker, the Google Maps look alike may be yours:

[Trevor Hannant]

Initial impression is good Marvin, thanks for the time you've taken on this so far!

Are you pulling in the FIR/Sector information from an existing source or have you created these source files yourself?

[Andreas Fuchs]

2 minutes ago, Trevor Hannant said:

Are you pulling in the FIR/Sector information from an existing source or have you created these source files yourself?

VATprism automatically pulls the data from the VATspy Data Project:https://github.com/vatsimnetwork/vatspy-data-project

The latest version, as of today, also allows users to have a local copy of that data  (for testing/editing purposes) which will inhibit the download of data.

[Marvin Kuhnke]

15 minutes ago, Trevor Hannant said:

Initial impression is good Marvin, thanks for the time you've taken on this so far!

Are you pulling in the FIR/Sector information from an existing source or have you created these source files yourself?

Thanks! For a little while now the data file URLs have been available on the VATSIM API, so this is where I pull the URLs from. They're checked every time you start VATprism, meaning you should always have the latest data files.

And as Andreas said, it's possible to use a local copy of the files, for example when you're trying to test if sector information you updated looks alright. For this, simply place the files (VATSpy.dat and/or FIRBoundaries.dat) in the config directory.

[Christoph Reule]

Hi @Marvin Kuhnke,

maybe I found a small bug...

When I select a colour scheme in the "preferences" window I can see a change on the map, but the selected scheme is not displayed.

 

[Marvin Kuhnke]

Just now, Christoph Reule said:

Hi @Marvin Kuhnke,

maybe I found a small bug...

When I select a colour scheme in the "preferences" window I can see a change on the map, but the selected scheme is not displayed.

Hey Christoph, thank you, though this is by design right now: You're not so much selecting a scheme as you are just loading that themes colors.

[Christoph Reule]

4 minutes ago, Marvin Kuhnke said:

Hey Christoph, thank you, though this is by design right now: You're not so much selecting a scheme as you are just loading that themes colors.

Okay, understood, however all loaded colours are obviously "grouped" into several colour schemes. Just found it a bit "confusing" to not see my actual selection in the preferences window but (instantly) on the map.

Edited September 14, 2021 at 03:02 PM by Christoph Reule

[Claude ROULLIER]

Hi Marvin,

Very well done. Congrats.

Just a little request. Controlled airports, or airports with no control but with arrivals or departures are displayed. When there is no control, we can know the numbers of arrivals/departures only thru the airports menu. Could they be displayed directly with a right click as it is when the place is controlled?

[Andreas Fuchs]

11 minutes ago, Claude ROULLIER said:

Just a little request. Controlled airports, or airports with no control but with arrivals or departures are displayed. When there is no control, we can know the numbers of arrivals/departures only thru the airports menu. Could they be displayed directly with a right click as it is when the place is controlled?

That's already on request on his GitHub page: https://github.com/marvk/vatprism/issues/53

[Trevor Hannant]

On 9/14/2021 at 1:00 PM, Marvin Kuhnke said:

Thanks! For a little while now the data file URLs have been available on the VATSIM API, so this is where I pull the URLs from. They're checked every time you start VATprism, meaning you should always have the latest data files.

And as Andreas said, it's possible to use a local copy of the files, for example when you're trying to test if sector information you updated looks alright. For this, simply place the files (VATSpy.dat and/or FIRBoundaries.dat) in the config directory.

Thanks Marvin, was asking because there was something that showed up that I wanted to check.  I've actually now raised an issue for it over on the VATSpy data GitHub as it relates to a sector no longer available so will simply be down to what VATPrism is pulling in.

 

[Kevin Wynne Duaban]

Hello. Does Vatprism have an app for ios?

[Marvin Kuhnke]

3 hours ago, Kevin Wynne Duaban said:

Hello. Does Vatprism have an app for ios?

Hey Kevin. Unfortunately, VATprism is desktop only at the moment and there is no plan to create mobile apps.

[Marvin Kuhnke]

Hey there, VATprism 0.3.0 is now live!

For the complete changelog and download links, visit the release page.

This update includes some most-wanted features and lots of other improvements and fixes, for example:

• Improved context menu: Context menu items now reflect what is displayed on the map
• VATprism now has the option to retain it's last position on the screen (needs to be enabled in the settings)
• Accelerated startup by caching static map data
• Changed data feed refresh rate from 30 to 15 seconds
• Airline information can now be accessed by hovering over the flight number in the detail view

I hope this update is helpful and brings you some joy. If you want to influence the continued development of VATprism, do look out on the VATprism Discord server. There, I will poll the most wanted features for 0.4.0 in the near future.

Thank you for your continued support!

Edited December 29, 2021 at 03:10 AM by Marvin Kuhnke